Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera/Archive 13

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ElinorD's edits to opera articles by Orbicle
Hi, everyone. As I've been making some small changes to several opera stubs, and as I don't know a great deal about opera, I just want to explain here what I'm doing and why.

An administrator came to my talk page to ask for my help in cleaning up some copyright violations. It's discussed here at the admin noticeboard (although those links will no longer work when the pages are archived). Someone made an originally massive list of articles created by that user, who has now been blocked indefinitely. As people go through the articles on the list, they google phrases or check in other ways, and then remove any copyright violations, they find, and then strikethrough the name of the article on the list. Then an admin comes along every few hours, and makes lots of consecutive struck-through titles invisible.

I offered to help to remove possible copyright violations. In some cases there was obviously no problem &mdash; just a disambiguation pages saying that X can refer to a novel written in 1859 by Y or a film produced in 1987 by Z. However, in the case of long paragraphs, a lot of blatant copyvios were found, and some administrators expressed discomfort at leaving phrases that had been written by that editor, as sections could even have been copied from books, and so wouldn't show up in search engines.

I was looking in particular for statistically-unlikely phrases. "John Smith was born in London in 1842" is okay. "The son of a London banker, he was educated at . . ." is not okay, especially when combined with lots of other phrases that closely match an original.

The editor in question has created quite a few opera stubs can get access to Grove Online articles, so although I don't know much about opera, I chose opera stubs to look at. I generally looked at his first and last edits to a particular article, as minor changes in wording from other editors could prevent something from showing in an online search, but it would still be a copyvio. I went to the online Grove, sometimes added something to the Wikipedia articles, with a footnote mentioning Grove online, and sometimes removed something that didn't have a source cited (which isn't to say that I thought it had been simply made up). I tried to rewrite phrases in my own words.

If anyone has a problem with anything I removed, please feel free to restore it, as long as it's not a word-for-word version of a paragraph added by Orbicle. Rewriting would be preferable, and I would have rewritten things that I removed, if I had had enough confidence in their verifiability to actually stand over the edit myself.

I just want to bring this to the attention of people interested in opera, as I've edited several opera articles, and will probably edit more, because of this issue; so I'd like you all to know what's going on in case my name shows up on your watchlists and you wonder why I made a particular edit. Thanks. ElinorD (talk) 09:05, 11 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your note. I am pleased we were able to work out the problem with the editing of La muette de Portici.


 * I note Orbicle's eloquent defence at User talk:Orbicle. Plagiarism is often a problem here. Biographies of artists (particularly singers) can often be taken wholescale from agents' websites - invariably by anon. and new writers. On the other hand I find it difficult to see how stubs (of the kind Orbicle was writing) can be considered plagiaristic on the basis of similarity of phrasing. This is an enclyclopedia and the wording we use is often formulaic and repetitive. What do other people think of this case? - Kleinzach 09:40, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the notification. I'm afraid the evidence at AN is fairly comprehensive, and User:Gmaxwell/orbicle shows that copyright violations have been committed. However, an indefinite block does not equate to an infinite one: I imagine that most people would be happy to unblock once we get an apology and a promise that, for want of better words, this won't happen again. Best, Moreschi Want some help? Ask! 14:06, 11 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, I have now seen that discussion, but I'm not convinced that the case is so cut and dried. Copyright infringement and plagiarism have been lumped together in this case, but they are not the same thing. I've looked for WP policies on them but not found much, especially on plagiarism. It's problematic because normally copyright violation implies material gain/loss, and plagiarism means taking personal credit for work you haven't done. Obviously neither really apply on WP. While obviously I deplore the cut-and-paste of publicity website material, it's not clear to me when and under what circumstances a crime has been committed. - Kleinzach 15:30, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I've been away from the Opera Project for a while, but from what I recall Orbicle has put a lot of work into wikipedia, and only a fraction of it appears to have copyvio problems. I'd be happy to voice a vote of confidence if Orbicle says something showing s/he clearly understand the policy and will proceed in accordance with it (and hopefully apologizes for the need to search through the articles). Fireplace 15:54, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Seconded. I looked up a couple of random articles listed among Orbicle's user contributions (Lodoïska and La straniera).  The former isn't copied from either of my printed sources, though it's possible that some of it comes from Grove (to which I no longer have access), and the latter is the sort of thing that could be written by any of us and has been worked on by numerous people.  I too wonder what percentage of her/his contributions will turn out to be copyvios?  A lot less than 50% is my guess.  I feel rather uncomfortable viewing what looks like a public pillorying/witch-hunt/hanging, drawing, quartering... Is there somewhere where we could jointly submit some sort of plea for mercy? --GuillaumeTell 21:29, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with that. Even though there's no doubt that there were clear copyright violations, I can't see it as a bad faith intention to disrupt Wikipedia, and several of the pages that I went through showed no signs of copyvios, or of statistically unlikely phrases, but rather showed evidence of an intention to make Wikipedia better. I think it's quite possible that he didn't realise in some cases that copying simple sentences from elsewhere on the web was a violation of copyright. I'm sure an administrator will be willing to unblock him if he agrees to be scrupulously careful in future. Blocks are meant to be preventative, not punitive. ElinorD (talk) 23:03, 11 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm sure you and the others are right. I'd unblock Orbicle myself if she (he?) 1) promises to copyvio no more, 2) helps us find the copy-pastes.  She/he has obviously done a lot of good work here.  But we also have a very hard policy against copyright infringement, because it is probably the single gravest threat the project faces.  Antandrus  (talk) 23:05, 11 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The main discussion is at AN but it is not structured in a way that makes a joint plea from us particularly easy to make. We could leave a note there referring back to the discussion here, or we could each add comments (perhaps muddying the waters?) but perhaps there is a better way? - Kleinzach 23:00, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Kleinzach wrote above "normally copyright violation implies material gain/loss" but this is simply not correct, legally. Copying protected content (beyond the bounds of Fair use is copyright infringment. That is simply that. Since all wikipedia text is suppsoed to be the editor's own work except where a quote is indicted, any intentional cut&paste copyright infringment could reasonably be called "plagerism" also, but I prefer to stick with copyright infringmetn or the short alias "copyvio". You are correct that short sterotyped list of facts don't lend themselves to mcuh re-writing, and a simple list of facts is usually not protected by copyright anyway (in the US, under the Fiest decision). But the discussion on WP:AN has produced too many phrase by phrase copys, in stuff that is not simple lists of facts with no otehr way to phrase them, to be accident or coincidience. I presume that the editor was attemping in good faith to help wikipedia, and I agree that the copyright holders suffered no financial harm. But until and unless the laws are changed, we have no choice but to be strict about this, as the risk of lawsuits is high, and wikipedia is by now a "high-profile" target. This discussion has been noted on AN (that's how I found it) but I don't think you are likely to see much sympathy until he acknowledges that what he did was against our policy (even if it was done in ignorance) and promises not to do the same sort of thing again, and offers to help at least a little with finding the existing copyvios. DES (talk) 01:37, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you for including the normally when you quoted me. Much appreciated. I stand by my opinion. I have spent a lifetime in publishing - including print encyclopedias - and when it comes to copyright I know what I don't know. I can't speak for Orbicle but my impression is that he was writing within a British rather than American cultural context, and he assumed he was recycling information that was already in the public domain (albeit carelessly). At this point in the controversy I hope everybody works together to solve the problem and lay down clear guidelines which will promote good practice by bona fide writers in the future. I hope the intention will not be to humiliate Orbicle by getting him to admit to something he doesn't think he has done. IMO it would be a good idea to unblock him and bring him into the discussion. - Kleinzach 03:56, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Since there seems to be general agreement about our opinion, I made a statement on behalf of us at User talk:Orbicle and linked to this discussion. If anyone objects, I'll modify it accordingly. Fireplace 13:43, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I've endorsed your statement at User talk:Orbicle. Perhaps other people might like to do this as well? - Kleinzach 04:22, 13 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I have left a note at Administrators%27_noticeboard to draw their attention to this discussion and the statement. - Kleinzach 15:12, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I am glad to say that thanks to the intervention from members of the WikiProject Opera - and especially for the persistence of ElinorD, - I was finally unblocked today. I thank everyone who put in a positive word on my behalf and look forward to contributing again. Thanks to all. Orbicle 15:31, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Composer infoboxes
I just wanted to bring to your attention the (hopefully soon to develop) discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Composers about the inclusion of infoboxes in articles about composers. Cheers, Mak (talk)  22:01, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Maria Cristina Kiehr
Hi, I was wondering if somebody involved in this project could help the editor who has made this page, as I do not believe they understand how to make a case for establishing notability. Heck, I don't even know if the person meets WP:MUSIC or any other standard, but I'm willing to give the person a chance to demonstrate it. Unfortunately, I think they've gotten upset at me (based on a comment in the edit summary), so I don't feel comfortable trying to help them any further. If someone could give them a little mentoring, it might be helpful. FrozenPurpleCube 16:26, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Will look at this later. The info provided does not seem to assert encyclopedic notability, but maybe there's more out there. Moreschi Want some help? Ask! 17:14, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Oh, she's totally notable and brilliant. I'll work on busting this out later. Mak (talk)  17:22, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with Mak. No problems with notability there. I have several recordings of her in operas etc. with René Jacobs conducting. I don't have much time for proper editing at the moment but I can use the bios from those if necessary. --Folantin 17:44, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Oh, and you might want to add it to your Wikiproject too. FrozenPurpleCube 18:42, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Biography Project banners on opera articles
Biography Project banners are being put on all opera articles relating to people by Kingbotk a bot operated by Kingboyk. I suggested to Kingbotk that the banners increased clutter etc. on pages which were not being developed by the Biography Project. Here is his reply:
 * I'm afraid there is a school of thought which says that as composers is entirely a subset of Biography, you should be sharing our template. That would cut down on the clutter far more than any self-imposed restriction in tagging scope by this project (a restriction which I don't think is going to happen; if an article is within scope we tag it.) See
 * Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Council where : is mentioned by name.
 * WRT to the comment "when the Biography Project is not involved in their development", I think that's hard to quantify. This is more of a "meta project" than a traditional WikiProject. We have a lot of members, a very big scope, and lots of people do work which could count as being a contribution to or on behalf of this project without actually signing up. --kingboyk 14:41, 13 April 2007 (UTC) (Copied from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography)

Kleinzach 00:09, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, at least it's banners on Talk pages and not infoboxes on article pages. --GuillaumeTell 00:36, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually one of the purposes of the banners is to tell people to put infoboxes on article pages. It's in the code. - Kleinzach 00:55, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
 * There are at least two collapseable templates for dealing with cluttered talk pages: Template:WikiProjectBanners, Template:WikiProjectBannerShell. Fireplace 02:13, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I've had a look but it seems these require some serious coding. I couldn't figure out how to do it. In any case we have 1,000+ people articles here. Incidentally Offenbach now has four of these boxes! - Kleinzach 02:45, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, it's easier with an example. I did this with Talk:Jacques Offenbach. Fireplace 04:14, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Let's use this with the more egregious examples! - Kleinzach 05:19, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I've found another one, Template:Hidden infoboxes. An example is at Talk:Kurt Weill. This is the least obtrusive one I have found so far.
 * BTW I have joined in a long 'discussion', started with the best of intentions by Lini, at the Project_Biography#Relationship_between_WPBio_and_WPOpera_.2F_WPComposers about the problem of banners, and by implication infoboxes. Unfortunately we didn't make a lot of progress. It was explained to me that we should form a working group to facilitate the processng of opera articles as required by the Biography (meta) Project. I understand we are not a serious group because we don't have an assessment system etc. - Kleinzach 00:55, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I can't say I was impressed by the attitude at WPBio either. On the bright side, it looks as if there is now consensus to remove those infoboxes from composer articles. --Folantin 09:43, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I do feel sorry for the way that discussion at WPBio turned out. As a member of the Biography project, I apologize for the lack of congeniality that may have sometimes come across in the responses from some of the project members. However, there are two things I'd ask of you:

1) Don't yet write off the Biography project, or the possibility of an association with it, in the future. Maybe chalk off this particular interaction as a bad experience, but not necessarily representative of the attitude of the project as a whole.  I'd like to talk about this more in the future, but not spend a lot of time and page space on it right now, when maybe we've all been doing more discussing and less editing than we'd want to do.

2.) Please don't feel that the placement of the project banners threatens you with infoboxes being imposed on all of the composer or opera-related biographical articles against your will. Kingbotk has not been adding the needs-infobox parameter to the WPBio project banners.  I know of no plans to dictate to either WPBio Working Groups or to other Projects what they must do regarding infoboxes.

The addition of the needs-infobox parameter to the banner on some articles, I believe was done solely by individuals, myself included (see again the Talk:Claudio Monteverdi example), in what now seems as a misguided attempt to be helpful, in order to generate lists of articles that could have infoboxes added. It honestly never occurred to me that someone might not want an infobox (embarassed face goes here). My comment on the Monteverdi talk page about infoboxes being standard for Biography articles, may, in the first place, have been inaccurate, and in the second place was never meant to imply that you'd be forced to have them. So, if that comment contributed in any way to the general impression that it seems some of you now have, I am very, very, sorry, and if there is any way I could have known that it would contribute to such an understanding, I would have been much more careful about what I was saying.

My sincere hopes that this will settle down, and I will try to devote my best efforts to being helpful in any way possible regarding all of the above. --Lini 03:46, 16 April 2007 (UTC)


 * You are not to blame and I'm not bothered personally, but there are indications that the Biography Project (or is it just the bot owner?) want to homogenize WP articles. Looking beyond the infobox problem and some (comical) tags demanding photos of early 19th century composers, the (two?) bots now trawling through the articles are leaving multiple category markers, listing and mapping the material for 'work groups' to access later. Also would-be editors are encouraged to write to new 'Comments Pages' circumventing the Talk pages. What should we make of all this? - Kleinzach 07:17, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
 * It is a bit of a shame however that you never bothered to look and see that the comical tag demanding photos actually produces a template saying that an image is requested. One might call your own ill-informed response as "comical" as the tag you were belittling. John Carter 18:17, 16 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Kleinzach, assuming your question is not just a rhetorical one :) I will attempt to answer. Yes, one of the main purposes of the tags IS for the work groups to access articles later, but I understand that the intention is not homogeneity, but is article quality. See the WPBio Assessment page, or the Arts and Entertainment Assessment page for examples of the statistics that can be compiled based on the category markers.  It is a tool for the working groups to focus their efforts on article improvement drives.


 * The Bio project needs experts in the various subject areas to work out style guidelines and best methods for quality assessment that are appropriate for their particular area of articles - just as you have already been doing in the area of biographies related to opera, or as WPComposers has been doing in the area of composers in general. IMO, maybe WPOpera doesn't need WPBio, but WPBio needs WPOpera.  WPOpera is not such an obscure project, as you rather modestly stated, Kleinzach, at one point on the WPBio talk page, nor is it lacking in being a serious project, as you thought was being implied.


 * At this time, you might understandably prefer that the Bio meta project did not exist at all; given that it does exist, I would like to see the WPOpera people given recognition as the experts in the field of Opera-related biographies that they already are, by acknowledgment that they already have been functioning as a WPBio working group would. An acknowledged association as a working group would not give WPBio the right to dictate to you in matters of style.  And, if there truly are any issues of style that would be appropriate to decide on for all biography articles, the voice of an Opera working group in those decisions would be very valuable, because of all your experience in hashing out those kind of issues for your opera articles.


 * Thanks for listening, --Lini 11:06, 16 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The Opera Project can only be effective an an independent project IMO. If it is subsumed into the meta (über) Biography Project for all people-related articles - and we have a lot of them, not just composers - and the pages are handed over for processing by the large popular music work groups like the (WPBio-created) WikiProject Musicians we will soon be overwhelmed. This is already happening on the high profile composers pages. For example see Talk:Ludwig van Beethoven. The 6th box is a new WPBio To do list. Item One is Wikify: On IE the Birth name appear as John Winston Lennon.
 * Blimey. I'm getting sick of this. That was vandalism by an anon IP. How can you blame that on WPBio? Why didn't you just remove it? Do you even understand how Wikipedia works? The great unwashed will edit your articles. Get over it, or go somewhere else. --kingboyk 12:25, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
 * This issue is already over and done with as kingboyk] knows. - [[User:Kleinzach|Kleinzach 13:27, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Lini, re your suggestion of cooperating with WPBio: Is there anyone at WPBio who shares your opinions? How can the Pandora's box be closed now that our articles are listed for edting by popular music groups (see for example: Category:Musicians work group articles needing infoboxes). --Kleinzach 02:22, 17 April 2007 (UTC)


 * If there are others at WPBio who share my opinion, I hope that they will speak up.


 * If some members of WPOpera and/or WPComposers started an Opera or Composers working group at WPBio, the Opera or Composers projects would still remain independent. The Opera project in particular has an entire scope of articles that are not biographies.  Regarding what you could do about the listings: if the Biography banner onTalk:Giuseppe Verdi, for example, said opera-work-group=Yes, instead of a&e-work-group=yes and musician-work-group=yes, then the article would be placed into opera work group categories instead of a&e and musician work group categories.   Likewise for Beethoven, if the banner had composer-work-group=yes, instead of musician-work-group.


 * It is not quite as simple as just putting in those parameters right now, since the work group does not exist yet; there would be some "leg work" required to set up the working group and modify the WPBio template to recognize a new work group. I'd offer my services to help look into this, if it is what the Opera and/or Composers project would like.  --Lini 02:40, 17 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Let's get something going, then. If it would help, I'll volunteer to join an Opera working group at WPBio. --GuillaumeTell 16:05, 17 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I have inquired at WPBio talk to see what would need to be done next, to get a work group started. --Lini 10:55, 18 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I should qualify my remarks above about the WPBio work-group tagging of articles; to be accurate and precise: if an opera work-group existed, and if the opera-work-group parameter were set to yes, for a given article, it might still be possible that other work-groups with overlapping interest in the article (like a&e or musicians) would wish to have it tagged as well (an article can have multiple work-group parameters set to yes). This would especially be true for articles that are a working-group's "top priority" for inclusion in a Core version, as I imagine some of the well-known composer articles would be for a&e.  But, a.) there may currently be articles on opera composers tagged for musicians work-group for lack of a more precise wg, which could be tagged as opera work-group instead, and b.) it would be to the advantage of WPOpera to have articles tagged at least with opera work-group in additon to other work-groups, where not possible to have them tagged solely as opera wg.  Hope that makes sense, Lini 11:10, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Ordinarily that would be right, but I would probably code an Opera workgroup as mutually exclusive to Musicians. Musicians is already mutually exclusive to Arts. So, if opera=yes, arts=no and musicians=no (even if they say "yes"!). --kingboyk 12:25, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you to Lini for your suggestion above (02:40, 17 April 2007) which is interesting and worth considering. However IMO the Opera Project should remain independent and responsible for its own assessments. Let me explain why.

In some ways, this situation has been forced on us prematurely. When most of us became involved in the project - in 2005 or 2006 - the coverage was dire and the quality was poor. We have done a lot in the last 18 months or so, but many of our articles still remain as stubs (hopefully viable rather than minimal) or as semi-finished articles containing basic facts rather than substance. We also have a large number of short articles which will permanently remain short, for lack of sources etc., at least in English.

The assessment systems used on WP tend to concentrate on major, or at least long articles, with an assumption that any text can be developed and expanded to some kind of ideal well-detailed completeness. It we are going to have a system - though I'd really prefer to put off any assessment until more work has been done - I'd propose having one which divides articles into different types (major, minor, background or whatever) as well as states (stub, start, B, A etc.).

Also if we want to get involved in this we should probably find out more about the Wikipedia CD Selection (Wikipedia 1.0, or whatver it is called). I understand that it was this group that asked for assessments in the first place, hence all the bot activity. - Kleinzach 14:47, 18 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I am in agreement with not moving forward with a WPBio Opera-work group without further discussion, for 2 reasons: a.) a changed situation from the interval between 16:05, 17 April (UTC) and approximately 10:55, 18 April 2007 (UTC) in which we had one editor saying "Let's get something going, then", and no dissent voiced during that interval, to the present, in which there is still only opinion expressed in favor, and one against.  -Not counting myself because I don't consider that I have enough past history of investment in opera articles; although I do hope to have more future history-  b.) second reason: yes, it should be explored whether members of WP Opera, acting as an opera working group associated with WP Bio, would have concerns about assessing articles according to the WP Bio scale; because much of the function of a working-group is integrated with the assessment scale. Sincerely, Lini 02:42, 19 April 2007 (UTC)